Posted on 10/06/2005 6:13:37 AM PDT by Junior
The problem with this statement is that you're a priori assuming that we could understand neither the methods nor the motives of the "unspecified agent." As a result, you reach the untenable conclusion that it is impossible to bound our observations of the putative agent's handiwork.
In reality it is not "obvious" at all. The physical nature of the systems in question tends to bound the solution space to a large extent. Further, human experience with those systems provides a means of understanding the limits of the solution space, as well as a ready-made set of techniques that can potentially be tested for.
No, the reason why we exclude ID if nothing is known about the supposed designer is the fact that it is not falsifiable.
And thus neither is its alternative.
What kind of physical evidence would you accept of a past event?
Cordially,
Sorry, the full article requires a subscription, but you can read it at a newsstand. The point is that genes and alleles are being tracked through generations in great detail. The anomalies that would indicate intervention have not been found, but not for lack of looking.
And thus neither is its alternative.
If by this you mean the TOE is not falsifiable, you are quite simply wrong. The TOE is readily falsifiable. However, no evidence has ever been presented to falsify its tenets in any major way.
It is falsifiable because it makes predictions both negative and positive. It makes predictions about what you cannot find if the TOE is accurate, and it makes predictions about what you should find if it is. So far, nothing has been found that clearly shouldn't be there, and everything that has been found has accorded pretty well with the positive predictions it does make (I'm not even going to bother regurgitating viral insertion studies and fossil strata predictions -- that's been done ad nauseum on other threads and is readily accessible).
r9etb seems to have no clue as to what has been done or what is being done in molecular biology. Every time a gene is studied in detail it yields a pattern of inheritance that fits what would be expected from other lines of evidence and reasoning.
When do we get to zoom in on the designer's serial number, as in Blade Runner?
I would say that falsifiablity in the sense of positive verification by direct observation cannot be had in any historical inquiry. Requiring that the postulated entities necessary to origins theories have to be directly observable if they are to be considered testable and falsifiable and therefore scientific would rule out out common descent as well as ID. There are myriad Darwinian hypothetical postulations of past, unobserved and unobservable 'events' that purport to account for present biological facts and data that cannot be directly tested either.
Cordially,
Well, that automatically follows from the unspecified nature of the alleged designer. As soon as we have the designer, I don't deny that we can learn about his methods and motivations and make inferences on what we should resp. shouldn't observe.
However, as long as this designer remains unidentified we can't make any meaningful inferences.
And to be honest, I haven't seen that any IDer has in any way identified this alleged designer or ascribed any concrete properties to him.
Forget the newsstand -- it's snowing and blowing like a mother here today -- I'm just worried about getting home. LOL!
Probably correct. Nevertheless, that does not seem relevant to the topic question: can science get the right answer when we know that the answer is ID? The logical consequences of an answer either way are pretty significant to the topic at hand.
Every time a gene is studied in detail it yields a pattern of inheritance that fits what would be expected from other lines of evidence and reasoning.
And thus the usefulness of the example I've been using. What sort of conclusion would a scientist draw from a bacterial genome that included a gene for the production of human insulin?
Looking back on the thread, it seems that you're calling Running Wolf a liar and hypocrite, apparently for no reason other than because he committed the heinous crime of questioning your statements. Perhaps you should hold off on your accusations of "arrogant hypocrisy," Mr. Pot.
sorry, I have been gone all weekend and hadn't checked posts.... you missed my point. Freedom "from" religion and "of" religion are not the same thing. Freedom "from" religion is simply that I may be offended (great liberal word)that my money says "in God we trust" on it... or the words "one nation, under God" is in my pledge of allegiance, and I shall interpret this to mean that I should be free from this religious mandate...hence the secular myth of seperation of church and state. The key to understanding the 1st Amendment is that the founding fathers believed in God as a superior being, in whatever form that that belief may be founded..Catholic, Protestant, Islam, Buddah, Allah... rather than no God, and hence the state "shall establish no religion nor prevent the free exercise thereof"... Not like the Church of England that would burn someone at the stake if they weren't living strictly morally in the eyes of the church, and might possibly later see the errors in their ways...(Joan of Arc...Saint Joan)
Well, we know for sure that the eye is intelligently designed. We have evidence on film that the designer is a little Asian guy who "just does eyes".
"Perhaps you should hold off on your accusations of "arrogant hypocrisy,..."
Not if it's true I won't, Mr. Kettle.
"Looking back on the thread, it seems that you're calling Running Wolf a liar and hypocrite, apparently for no reason other than because he committed the heinous crime of questioning your statements."
Maybe it's because he IS an arrogant hypocrite? :)
He IS a creationist, whether it be YEC or OEC or ID; it's all variations on the same theme.
I am still waiting for positive physical evidence of the Resurrection. Why is that so hard to give? Isn't it already proved? Why do YOUR beliefs get a pass and science has to provide absolute proof? Why can't you just say that the Resurrection is based on Faith? I'll accept that, and I'll respect the honesty.
True, but that also requires you to assume that either a) the unspecified designer deliberately designed everything to look exactly as if it were the product of evolutionary development or b) this designer, in the face of astronomical odds, quite accidentally designed everything so that it looks exactly as if it were the product of evolutionary development.
Neither of those scenarios is unequivocally impossible, but neither has much going for it a a scientific theory. I mean, it's entirely possible we're all living in The Matrix too, and everything we are observing is computer-generated sensory input, but absence any sort of evidence to that effect, it's pretty much a scientific nonsatarter.
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